黑料不打烊

"What is photography? Is it a print, an object or is it a jpg on your screen? Does it only exist if you print it out? Does it only count if it鈥檚 a big file, a TIFF? Or is it a snapshot on your phone or a slide projection, or is it the image you see in your mind before you click the shutter? Is it that great picture you missed, the time you ran out of film or the camera jammed or you didn鈥檛 even have your camera with you? In short, is photography an object or an image, or is it a way of seeing?" (Zoe Leonard)

Ever since its invention 175 years ago artists have consistently questioned the nature of photography. Today artists acutely aware of the omnipresence of photographic images produce works exploring numerous aspects of photography: its materiality, its popularism, its psychological impact, its claims to objectivity, and its force in mass media. Against a familiar backdrop of the accelerating disappearance of analog photography and the simultaneously triumphal progress of digital photography, these works explore new ways of re-picturing and inhabiting that history. The exhibition presents a history of photography that is wild and ironic, with tinges of melancholy here and there.

The second part of the exhibition 鈥� Manifestos 鈥� presents ground-breaking texts by those who are always the most radical writers on photography: photographers themselves. L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy, August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martha Rosler and Germaine Krull and many others wrote strong declarative texts 鈥� in a 20th century context of avant-garde movements deeply wound up with photography announcing their intentions in seminal publications of all sorts and even radio broadcasts exhorting readers and listeners to see the world with new eyes through the medium. Refl ected in an elaborate spatial scenography, the manifestos are displayed alongside photographic incunabula of their authors.

Participating artists

Works

Claudia Angelmaier, Michael Badura, Sylvia Ballhause, Laura Bielau, Viktoria Binschtok, Kristleifur Bj枚rnsson, Bernhard Blume, Christian Boltanski, G眉nter Karl Bose, Johannes Brus, Michel Campeau, Sarah Charlesworth, Jojakim Cortis & Adrian Sonderegger, Tacita Dean, Bogomir Ecker, Hans Eijkelboom, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Joan Fontcuberta, Florian Freier, Katharina Gaenssler, Jochen Gerz, G.R.A.M., Aneta Grzeszykowska, Jeff Guess, Rudolf Herz, John Hilliard, Alfredo Jaar, Kenneth Josephson, Erik Kessels, Jochen Lempert, Zoe Leonard, Les Levine, Zbigniew Libera, Stanislaw Markowski, Santu Mofokeng, Ugo Mulas, Andreas M眉ller-Pohle, Renate Heyne & Floris M. Neus眉ss, Peter Piller, Steven Pippin, Richard Prince, Barbara Probst, Arnulf Rainer, Timm Rautert, Benjamin Rinner, J贸zef Robakowski, Thomas Ruff, Ed Ruscha, Adrian Sauer, Joachim Schmid, Pavel Maria Smejkal, Michael Snow, Clare Strand, Larry Sultan & Mike Mandel, Vibeke Tandberg, Ulrich Tillmann & Wolfgang Vollmer, Wolfgang Tillmans, Axel T枚pfer, Timm Ulrichs, Franco Vaccari, Matthias W盲hner, Gillian Wearing, Jan Wenzel, Christopher Williams, Akram ZaatariWith works by Tacita Dean, Alfredo Jaar, Sherrie Levine, Santu Mofokeng, Ugo Mulas, Barbara Probst, Sigmar Polke, Timm Rautert, Thomas Ruff, Pavel Maria Smejkal, Larry Sultan & Mike Mandel,  Clare Strand, Wolfgang Tillmans, Axel T枚pfer, Timm Ullrichs, Gillian Wearing, Christopher Williams

In an extensive two-part exhibition the Department of Photography presents an alternative history to photography 175 years after its invention. The exhibition does not focus on the technical, sociological, art historical or media related views of photography 鈥� instead it is a view of the medium completely told by the artists themselves.

(Mis)Understanding Photography presents a wild, ironic, and occasionally melancholic history of photography. It takes into account the aspirations and obsessions people have with the medium. The second part of the exhibition is entirely dedicated to the photographers鈥� manifestos, since the most radical statements on photography are from the photographers themselves.